Desire
by Alie365
Summary: RLNT “So, you think I’m an innocent child, Remus?” He looked alarmed by the suggestion. “No, no, not a child. Just… young.” What happened between Lupin and Tonks that had her crying to Molly Weasley in the middle of the night? Sequel to 'The First Time'
1. Chapter 1

Tonks has always been one of my favourite minor characters in Harry Potter (and she's pretty high on my list of favourite overall characters too), and Remus has also always been one of my favourites. So, of course, I love this pairing. In case you were wondering, the line 'Forever shall the wolf in me desire the sheep in you' comes from a Nightwish song, 'Beauty and the Beast', which I obviously do not own. I was reading some Remus/Tonks fanfiction for the first time, and suddenly that line came up within the song (I hadn't even realised what song was playing). In response, I decided to dash this off in the ten minutes before I shut my computer off to go to bed. So here it is. In case you hadn't already guessed, I am not J.K. and therefore neither of these guys belong to me.

This either occurs somewhere within book 6, somewhere at the very end of book 5, or in the dead space between the two books. You decide.

Desire

Tonks had decided to confront him. She wanted to make Remus see that they could have more than meaningless encounters during dark nights. She had wanted to tell him that she loved him, and that she thought maybe he could love her. She wanted to tell him that, whatever pain he was in, together they could get through it. But she had not expected this.

"I've been thinking about it, Tonks." To her, Lupin looked as if like he was trying to be cold, but he couldn't quite do it. He just looked sad, and defeated.

"Then why haven't we ever spoken about it? If you've been thinking so much why do we never talk?" Lupin looked far into the distance. From the back of his mind, unbidden, came the lines from an old poem; one that he had studied long ago in the libraries of Hogwarts. When he had wanted to know everything there was to know about werewolves, and whether they could truly love.

"Forever shall the wolf in me, desire the sheep in you."

"Remus, Remus I don't…"

"It's your innocence! You're young, and unspoilt. The part of me… the wolf in me, wants that. Wants to take that innocence and destroy it." Tonks looked at him, and a dangerous glint appeared in her eyes. She stepped forwards, anger in every line of her body.

"So, you think I'm an innocent child, Remus?" He looked alarmed by the suggestion.

"No, no, not a child. Just… young." Tears filled the woman's eyes.

"You… you are so naïve! What, you think just because you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders, that no one else has ever hurt? You think just because I'm young that I don't have painful secrets? Things hidden in my past that I tell no one?" He had turned away, but she grabbed his hands and turned him, forcing him to look at her, "Remus, I hurt. I have been broken. Maybe not in the way that you consider yourself to be broken, but broken, all the same."

"It is different!" Remus sounded almost desperate now, pleading, "I don't know what happened to you, and I have no right to hear it." He held up his hand, to stop her revealing anything, "It is different. You may have been broken, but you yourself said it. Maybe without realising, but you made the distinction. Broken. Past tense. Me… I'm still broken. I can never be fixed. I can never be whole… for you." Tonks was crying freely now.

"Remus, I don't want whole. I don't want fixed. I want you, and you don't seem to understand it! All these nights we've spent together, and yet we don't talk. You sneak into my room, we have sex like, like animals! And then you creep away. Not one word, Remus. Do you have any idea how much it kills me?" Guilt flooded through him.

"I am so sorry, Nymph…"

"Don't!" She sighed now. The intensity of her emotions seemed to have deflated her. "I understand. What we do, it fulfils some need in you. It makes you feel…"

"Whole." He completed her sentence.

"But it's not enough. During the day, we talk. We joke around, and we chat about meaningless things. But you never tell me anything real. You don't share your feelings; you don't share your past. And I cannot continue being used as an antidote to whatever it is you're going through. Remus, I think I'm falling…"

"Don't say it, please, don't!" She continued, as if he had never spoken. She had to say this now, or maybe she never would.

"…in love with you." She paused, letting the weight of those words sink in, "But I can't go on like this. I can't go on having meaningless sex with you and then us both pretending that we haven't. Either start something, right here, or…" She paused again, and swallowed. Her throat suddenly felt dry, "or end it now. Because I can't keep doing this."

"Then…" Remus couldn't look at her. He couldn't meet her eyes and see the hurt, and the betrayal that would come with what he was about to say, "then it has to end, Tonks." She went cold. She felt as if his words had struck her, like a physical punch to the gut. Without a word, she Disapparated. Remus sat heavily at the table, and put his head in his hands. There, in the darkness and silence of the kitchen, he began to sob.

Reviews would be nice. I do have an idea about Tonks' dark secret, which probably involved her lovely aunt Bellatrix. At some point I might write it, but only if enough people ask. Also, please comment on the characterisation. I tried to stay as true as possible to the pair of them, but I think this is deeper than we see them both during the books, so some feedback on that would be nice. :)


	2. Chapter 2

Here's a short little second chapter. I would have brought it to the point where Tonks actually tells Molly what's going on, but my computer's spacebar is broken at the moment, so it's not ideal for writing for any great length of time. I'm also sorry it's taken me so long, but I've been busy with university. Hopefully once I get my coursework out of the way, and get my new computer, I'll be able to write the whole thing. I'm thinking I'll trace their relationship through the sixth book, then write a little end bit designed to fit in before the seventh book.

Anyway, thank you all for being so patient with me, and I would love to get some more reviews, if you're all willing (and even though this chapter is so short). It was lovely reading everything you had to say. I don't think I've ever been given such nice reviews before :-)

Chapter 2:

Tonks hadn't known where to Apparate to, and so she moved to just outside her front door. She sunk to the ground, sobbing quietly, so as not to alert Remus to the fact that she was there. Sitting against the door, she felt her hair change in colour and length, and she knew instinctively that it was now a mousy brown – her natural colour, and the colour it always went when she was depressed. In that moment she wanted to tear it all out of her head. She took a deep breath, and then another, stifling her sobs. Listening, she heard Remus moving around inside. She panicked. He might hear her and open the door, and she couldn't bear seeing him after what had just occurred. Frantically, she ran through the places that she could go in her head. Grimmauld Place was out; Remus might go there, and she wasn't sure what was going on with the house. Dumbledore hadn't wanted to tell Harry that he owned it until he had had some time to adjust to Sirius's death, and Harry might not want the building used as headquarters. She didn't want to talk to her parents. She hadn't told them what was going on and Remus wasn't exactly an ideal candidate for a boyfriend. She listened at the door again. It sounded like Remus was doing some quiet sobbing himself. She took vindictive pleasure in the fact that he was in pain, too. But it also sounded like he wouldn't be leaving her flat for some time, and therefore she couldn't go back in. Then a thought entered her head, like an epiphany. She would go to the Weasley's. Maybe she could talk to Charlie, or Bill. Without another thought, she stood, and Disapparated.

She reappeared outside The Burrow. Inadvertently thinking of the last time she had been here, when she and Remus, together with some of the other Order members had had dinner, and Remus had made her laugh so hard (about what, she could not recall), that juice had come out of her nose, tears welled up in her eyes once more, and she chocked back a sob.

"Who's out there?" The voice belonged to Molly. There was no going back now. Tonks made an effort to keep her voice steady.

"It's me, Tonks."

"And how am I supposed to be sure that…" The words trailed away, as Tonks came forward into the light spilling from the half-open doorway, and Mrs. Weasley got a look at her face. "Oh, Tonks." She stepped out of the door, put an arm around the sobbing young woman's shoulders, and guided her into the house.

"Molly, I'm sorry. I really shouldn't be here this late."

"Oh, it's alright, dear. It's only just passed ten, and I was up anyway. I haven't been sleeping so well lately, so I thought maybe I'd have a nice cup of tea before going to bed. And Arthur is still at work. He tells me to go to bed, but I prefer waiting up for him if I can." She guided Tonks to a seat at the kitchen table as she spoke, and poured her a cup of tea. Tonks smiled ruefully.

"Thanks, Molly." Tonks kept her eyes downward, avoiding Molly's gaze, and slowly sipped the tea.


	3. Chapter 3

I am very, very, very sorry everyone. I hate when a story I am reading is unfinished, or a huge gap is left between updates - I originally intended this as a one shot, which is why I posted it, but I couldn't resist the calls of the reviewers, and now I've been discourteous to you all, and for that I apologise. Since I re-read the reviews for this and have been inspired again, I will attempt to finish it off. However, I have not read The Half-Blood Prince in a long while, and the accuracy of this fic depends on that. I don't have my copy at university, but I'm going home next weekend, so I'll re-read it then (thank god I'm a fast reader, lol) and then I'll write the next chapter.

Finally, I wrote most of this chapter very quickly about twenty minutes ago, and I haven't read it back to myself yet,so there may be some errors/repetitions and other writing faux pas in here. I will probably end up re-reading it after I've posted it, and then be very angry with myself and replace the chapter in order to fix my own errors, but for now, here is exactly what fell out of my head at half past eleven on a Sunday night.

Chapter 3:

Molly wasn't quite sure how to help. Tonks was a dear thing, and she was fond of her, but as long as she had known her, the girl had been happy. She and Charlie had been friends in school (and for a while, Mrs Weasley had thought they might be something more), and she had always gotten on well with Bill. Molly assumed that she had come here to see one of them, but Charlie's all too brief visit was already over, and Bill was fast asleep, with Fleur. She still had trouble with that particular fact. In Molly's opinion, that girl held far too high an opinion of herself, and Bill deserved someone better. Someone like Tonks, in fact. Except not the Tonks sitting at her kitchen table right now, with her hair lank and brown, and her eyes swollen from crying.

"Tonks," she began, "honey, I can't help you if you don't tell me what the matter is." Tonks looked at her across the table, seemingly considering her words carefully.

"I've fallen in love with someone. But either he doesn't love me back, or he's scared to, and I'm not sure which is worse."

Molly fought the urge to smile, just a little. Often love was a simple thing to fix, except when one party was being stubborn. She also felt herself overcome with curiosity. The wizarding world was not a large one, and being an Auror, Tonks didn't really have much time socially, therefore it was very likely that, whoever she was in love with, it was probably someone she knew.

"Why do you think he might be scared to love you?" For Tonks, this was the hard part. She knew that, in order to fully confide in Molly the reasons Remus had given that they couldn't be together, she'd have to tell her who she was talking about. She took a deep breath.

"Molly, I've fallen in love with Remus." Mrs. Weasley blinked. Then, to Tonks' surprise, she stated, matter-of-factly,

"I see. And he thinks he's too old, or too poor, or too dangerous for you, is that it?" Tonks almost laughed out loud. What came out was a grim sounding chuckle, but Molly reasoned that it was a start.

"All three, actually; But I don't care if he's older, or poor, and the times we're living in at the moment every second is dangerous, and I'm an Auror anyway, so it's not like my life would be a safe and cosy one without him in it, and I love him!" Tonks' now looked fierce instead of despondent, and her eyes glittered with the same fire they had earlier when she's confronted Remus. Molly admired her conviction. It reminded her strongly of when she was young, and arguing that she and Arthur were ready for marriage, in spite of her parents objections. That argument had eventually led to their elopement.

"Tonks, have you told him all this?"

"Tonight," Tonks said, deflating again, "I told him to either start something, or finish it..."

"And he took the second option?" Tonks nodded miserably, "That man has many good qualities, but intelligence when it comes to interpersonal relationships is not one of them."

"After the argument I didn't know where to go, since it happened in my flat and I Disapparated."

"You came here looking for Charlie or Bill." It wasn't a question.

"Yes. But honestly, Molly, I'm glad that I'm talking to you." Mrs. Weasley smiled.

"I think that you should give him a little space, and then try talking to him again. In the meantime I could..."

"No!" Tonks interrupted, "I'm sorry, Molly, I don't mean to be harsh, but this is something that I need to take care of myself. I think that you talking to him might make him run even further." And then her eyes filled with tears again, "Except he doesn't have to run further, because Dumbledore is sending him to live amongst the other Werewolves again, and he hates it, he hates that part of himself and doing that might well destroy him, but he can't refuse..." She put her head in her hands again, stifling her sobs so as not to wake anyone else in the house. At that moment, there was a knock on the door.


End file.
